Episode 635 When Money Becomes the New Obsession with Bizzy

Episode 635 When Money Becomes the New Obsession with Bizzy

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? In this candid solo check-in from Porto, Portugal, Elizabeth “Bizzy” Chance realises that while alcohol is long gone, obsession hasn’t disappeared – it’s just changed shape. Sitting alone in a foreign city without her usual distractions, Bizzy notices how loudly money worries echo in her mind. She talks about constantly running mental tallies – “Do you ever do that?

Like all day long, you’re like, okay, I spent this amount of money…” – and how she came across the idea of “PTSD over money” while writing about her past. That writing exercise opens the floodgates to memories of growing up hearing, “There’s not enough, there’s not enough,” and how those old fears still drive her today.

Bizzy draws a clear line between her former obsession with alcohol and her current obsession with finances: the same looping questions, the same restlessness, the same urge to shut it all off. “It’s like I switched alcohol for money,” she says, and anyone who’s swapped one compulsion for another will likely feel seen.

From praying at Fatima for relief from money fear, to talking with hotel staff living on modest wages, to meeting a minimalist British traveller who buys clothes from charity shops and passes them on, she keeps circling one big question: how much worrying is actually helping? Her answer is blunt – it isn’t. Instead, she leans back on 12-step tools, prayer, meditation, writing out her “money story” like a fourth step, and speaking honestly with her sponsor.

She admits she can’t fix this with willpower alone and needs something bigger than herself to quiet the noise. If you’ve ever swapped drinking for doom-scrolling bank balances, this honest episode might be the nudge to name your own obsession and start working on it, one day and one honest conversation at a time.